Victoria's state logging company VicForests could put Melbourne's drinking supply at risk by illegally logging.

The Office of the Conservation Regulator, the official government regulator for the state-owned logging company VicForests, uncovered illegal logging at two locations last year but did not take action. 

The logging occurred on steep slopes in an important water catchment area. Bans exist for logging on slopes steeper than 30 degrees, as it can cause soil to flow into the water, compromising water quality. It can lead to an increased chance of dangerous algal blooms and drive up the cost of filtration. 

But the regulator chose only to tell VicForests that it had an “expectation” that the company would comply with the law in future.

However, independent analysis by two Australian National University scientists suggests the breaches are “widespread and systematic”.

The peer-reviewed study found 75 per cent of logging areas in the water catchment area have been subject to illegal logging.

The Victorian government's conservation regulator Kate Gavens has issued a statement saying the claims of “systemic and widespread breaching of slope prescriptions could not be substantiated”. 

VicForests does not deny breaching the law, but says the regulator did not find any impacts on drinking water or the environment.

“VicForests puts in place a range of protections in its harvesting operations to protect water quality,” a VicForests spokesperson told reporters.

Professor David Lindenmayer, one of the scientists behind the ANU report, says the regulator needs to take more action.

“It's like buying lettuce from Coles and Woolworths and then slapping the wrists of people in VicForests [with it],” he said.

“It should be preventing these kinds of problems by actually doing the analysis in the first place to show VicForests the parts of the forest that they cannot log,” he said.

“The problem is if you don't look properly you don't find a problem.”

The breaches are not the first such issues for the state-owned forestry firm, VicForests. The company has been slammed in the past for logging in water catchments, as well as for taking timber it did not own, and it is in the process of appealing a court decision that found much of VicForests logging has been conducted illegally.

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